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A symposium honoring the legacy of Vera Rubin was held at Georgetown University June 24-26, 2019. Rubin, who passed away in 2016, was a pioneer in astronomy who used measurements of the rotation curves of galaxies to infer the presence of large amounts of matter out to their observed edges. She found that her measurements of the motion of stars around the centers of the galaxies implied the existence of an unknown type of matter, now called dark matter, in amounts exceeding that of the observed matter.

"In 1895, Marie Evelyn, a journalist from the San Francisco Call was sent to interview an eccentric local figure, one Ms Rose O'Halloran, amateur astronomer, described as 'The woman with the pet telescope'."

"Ann Nelson loved a challenge. From becoming an accomplished physicist in a field dominated by men to summiting mountains, Dr. Nelson spent her life focused on the next goal - and on giving others a hand along the way."

"Distinguished heavy-element chemist Polly Arnold has been appointed as director of the Chemical Sciences Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, according to a recent press release from the lab.

Beginning in late September, Arnold will begin her work within the Energy Sciences Area at Berkeley Lab, and she will join the UC Berkeley chemistry department’s faculty in January 2020, according to the press release. "

Back to top.5. How gender bias excludes women from international scientific collaborationFrom: Alessandra Aloisi [aloisi_at_stsci.edu]

"As our world becomes increasingly interconnected, and as technology makes it easier to talk to each other across continents, the field of science is becoming more and more global. International collaboration among scientists is on the rise, according to a report from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

But even such broad collaboration is subject to gender biases that are embedded in the very structure and culture of global science, says Kathrin Zippel, who is a professor of sociology at Northeastern University. Another UNESCO report shows that women comprise less than 30 percent of the world’s researchers."

Back to top.6. After Investigation, Neil deGrasse Tyson Will Keep His JobFrom: Heather Flewelling [heather_at_ifa.hawaii.edu]

By Elizabeth A. Harris

"Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist who leads the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, will keep his job, the institution said on Thursday. The museum has closed an investigation into sexual misconduct accusations against him.

"The museum's investigation into allegations concerning Neil deGrasse Tyson is complete," a museum spokeswoman said in a brief statement. "Based on the results of the investigation, Dr. Tyson remains an employee and director of the Hayden Planetarium. Because this is a confidential personnel matter, there will be no further statements by the museum."

Dr. Tyson was accused of behaving inappropriately with two women in an article published in November on the website Patheos."

Back to top.7. Student evaluations of teaching are not only unreliable, they are significantly biased against female instructorsFrom: Heather Flewelling [heather_at_ifa.hawaii.edu]

By Anne Boring, Kellie Ottoboni, and Philip B. Stark

"Many universities rely heavily or exclusively on student evaluations of teaching (SET) for hiring, promoting and firing instructors. After all, who experiences teaching more directly than students? But to what extent do SET measure what universities expect them to measure - teaching effectiveness?

To answer this question, we apply nonparametric permutation tests to data from a natural experiment at a French university (the original study by Anne Boring is here), and a randomized, controlled, blind experiment in the US (the original study by Lillian MacNell, Adam Driscoll and Andrea N. Hunt is here). We confirm and extend the studies' main conclusion: Student evaluations of teaching (SET) are strongly associated with the gender of the instructor. Female instructors receive lower scores than male instructors. SET are also significantly correlated with students' grade expectations: students who expect to get higher grades give higher SET, on average. But SET are not strongly associated with learning outcomes."

Back to top.8. Why we need to keep talking about equality in physicsFrom: JoEllen McBride [joellen.mcbride_at_gmail.com]

By Jess Wade and Maryam Zaringhalam

"The lack of diversity among physicists is an ongoing problem - and, while it persists, physics will fail to achieve its full potential. Jess Wade and Maryam Zaringhalam discuss the implications of poor diversity in the field and how it could be overcome."

Back to top.9. Study suggests use of gender-neutral terms to describe people leads to gender equalityFrom: Heather Flewelling [heather_at_ifa.hawaii.edu]

By Bob Yirka

"A pair of researchers, one with Washington University in St. Louis, the other with the University of California, has found evidence that suggests the use of gender-neutral terms to describe people promotes gender equality. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Margit Tavits and Efrén Pérez describe experiments they conducted with Swedish volunteers and what they found."

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